Describe the relationships among communication, mass communication, culture and those who live in the culture.

2. Describe the relationships among communication, mass communication, culture and those who live in the culture.

Because culture can limit and divide or liberate and unite, it offers us infinite opportunities to use communication for good— if we choose to do so. We are everyone involved in creating and maintaining the culture that defines us. We are the people involved in mass media industries and the people who compose their audiences. Together we allow mass communication not only to occur but also to contribute to the creation and maintenance of culture. Everyone involved has an obligation to participate responsibly. For people working in the media industries, this means professionally and ethically creating and transmitting content. For audience members, it means behaving as critical and thoughtful consumers of that content. Two ways to understand our opportunities and our responsibilities in the mass communication process are to view the mass media as our cultural storytellers and to conceptualize mass communication as a cultural forum.

Mass communication has become a primary forum for the debate about our culture. Logically, then, the most powerful voices in the forum have the most power to shape our definitions and understandings. Where should that power reside—with the media industries or with their audiences? If you answer “media industries,” you will want members of these industries to act professionally and ethically. If you answer “audiences,” you will want individual audience members to be thoughtful and critical of the media messages they consume. The forum is only as good, fair, and honest as those who participate in it.

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